In addition to providing technical assistance, FAO has a mandate for normative activities, which fall broadly under five areas (FAO 2000):
There is growing consensus among member nations that the Organization’s role in setting national and international norms and standards through informing policies and institutions is of paramount importance, and represents FAO’s unique comparative advantage.
DFID’s strong commitment to the Millennium Development Goals has increasingly oriented its activities towards international efforts aimed at reducing hunger in the world. DFID’s focus on influencing policies at local, national, regional and global levels includes support to the UN’s contribution to international development.
FAO and DFID have forged an alliance to facilitate national and international policy processes through the creation of a Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Initiative (PPLPI). The Initiative develops the capacity of FAO’s member nations, the Organization itself and other international organizations, to inform national and international decision-making in support of poor people’s livestock-related livelihoods. This is achieved through a central facility based at FAO headquarters in Rome, funded by DFID, and through regional pro-poor livestock policy hubs.
The central facility builds on FAO’s comparative advantage as an intergovernmental organization with a global mandate for guiding national and international policy towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In addition, the central facility guides, co-ordinates and provides technical support to the Initiative’s regional activities. The core functions of the central facility are the following:
The central facility compiles and collates datasets required to inform and guide the development of pro-poor livestock policy, at global, regional and national levels. Policy analysis is conducted based on relevant information such as the distribution of poor livestock keepers and the constraints that they face. Spatial databases are to be supported by detailed inventories and reviews of livestock-related policies, by bibliographic databases that make relevant information accessible to policy makers and analysts, by the development of Internet-based tools for the dissemination of information and of project outputs, and by the development of systems to monitor and evaluate the effects of implementing policy change.
Decision support tools are under development to analyse the effects of existing policies on poor livestock keepers, to model the impact of changing institutional and market environments on the outcomes of existing policies, to predict the impact of policy changes on different groups of livestock producers and consumers and to identify opportunities for intervention through adjustment of livestock-related policies.
To obtain comparable results in the various regions, the central facility is developing standardized methodological approaches. Core issues addressed include sector linkages, the impact of policies and institutional changes on different actors within the livestock sector and the identification of appropriate policy instruments for different circumstances.
The central facility conducts regional and global assessments of issues having a major impact on the livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in the regional debates. Recurring issues include trade liberalization, the increasing market and political power of the multi-nationals, the impact of rising food safety and environmental standards, access to common-property resources and harmonizing the private and public sectors. Such assessments provide support to policy makers and negotiators from the regions as they engage in policy dialogue at the international level.
The central facility endeavours to feed the materials and insights emerging from policy analyses and regional assessments into high-level global debates to ensure that local concerns are included in the international livestock policy dialogue. The aim is to increase policy makers’ awareness of the impact that their decisions have on poor livestock keepers. This requires the development of appropriate partnerships and careful selection of priority topics and relevant policy arenas. The central facility aims to inform stakeholders about the trade-offs and distributional implications of alternative courses of action, and of linkages between policy measures at various levels.
There is a significant number of producer and civil society organizations, both at national and international levels, that have a strong interest in improving rural livelihoods. The central facility forms coalitions with like-minded initiatives to push jointly for pro-poor policies, both in developing and developed countries.
The regional hubs are an essential part of the Initiative. They provide the link between the concerns of poor livestock keepers in the selected regions and the central facility, which focuses its efforts to support pro-poor livestock interventions at regional and global levels.
One of the principal tasks of the regional hubs is to engage in dialogue with poor livestock keepers and to identify and analyse a range of issues affecting their livelihoods at local, national and regional scales. Characterising the different types of livestock keepers, and identifying the main policy and institutional constraints they face, are important steps towards identifying the issues to be addressed.
The regional hubs bring together individuals and organizations who can gain by sharing information and knowledge. These networks would include local and national governments, national and international research organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs) and the donor community.
Another important aspect of the regional hubs is to enhance local capacity for policy impact analysis, policy formulation and policy negotiation, particularly among groups representing the interests of poor livestock keepers.
The regional hubs endeavour to identify and establish equitable negotiating fora for policy dialogue within these regions, and to empower poor livestock keepers in the policy arena by fostering pro-poor alliances that increase their representation and strengthen their lobbying power.
The following pages are an overview of selected regions.
Note: The map shown is merely indicative of geographical region and does not accurately demark international boundaries.
West Africa*
Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte
d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo
* Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA)
www.uemoa.int
Countries in West Africa are among the poorest in the world. Agriculture is the principal livelihood option in rural areas and, in the high-risk environment of the Sahel, livestock are crucial to survival. As human populations have increased, conflicts over land and water resources between nomadic/transhumant and sedentary livestock keepers have become increasingly serious. Sustainable livestock production, and the appropriate management of natural resources, have therefore become key issues.
UEMOA countries share a common currency and are seeking ways to further enhance economic cooperation and trade. Rural livestock farmers could benefit from this trend if policies and institutions are in place that facilitate their integration into the market. However, poor producers in the sector remain relatively unorganized and disadvantaged in the policy formulation process. Offering support for local-level, independent organizations may help strengthen organizational capacity of livestock producers and increase their influence in policy formulation.
There is an urgent need to address issues related to food safety. An increasingly urban consumer base is demanding food that meets higher standards of safety.
Under the liberalized trade regime that favours large-scale importers, the expanding urban market is being lost to livestock producers from developed countries.
Greater autonomy for local government service units and the integration of private service providers are required to give poor livestock keepers access to better services, especially in remote rural areas.
The meat sector suffers from unduly high transaction costs. A legal framework to regulate and protect microfinancing institutions, would give poorer people better access to credit.
Horn of Africa*
Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda
* Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
www.igad.org
Projections for the Horn of Africa show a significant increase in the demand for livestock products over the next 30 years. Economic growth in the Horn of Africa is likely to stay modest and much of this growth in demand will result from population increases. Nevertheless, projected growth in per capita consumption of livestock products is generally well above increases in the consumption of other food items, and in the absence of viable alternative opportunities, this growth offers opportunities for improving the incomes and livelihoods of the livestock-dependent poor. The projected demand can be covered largely by local (in-country) production, particularly if ‘dumping’ of livestock products and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) subsidies for livestock production and exports are phased out, as foreseen in the latest round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.
Linking small-scale livestock producers to the expanding markets for livestock products, with the aim of reducing poverty, requires significant policy shifts both at national and international level. Thus, even in the absence of significant economic development, the livestock sector provides a number of potential interventions that would lead to improvements in the livelihoods of the large majority of the livestock-dependent poor.
These interventions include, for example, the implementation of policies and institutional changes that improve access for poor people to livestock services, that facilitate the development of livestock sector grass-roots organizations, that enhance disaster preparedness and response capacity, that empower marginalized groups and increase control and ownership over their productive assets.
South Asia*
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
* South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
www.saarc-sec.org
South Asia is home to around one-third of the world’s poor. Many are landless people and small marginal farmers who own livestock to support their families and generate small amounts of income. Livestock has the potential to improve their livelihoods because relatively high value products, for which there is a growing market, can be obtained from small amounts of land and from the use of agricultural by-products and common-property resources.
At present, however, institutional constraints prevent poor livestock owners from realizing the full potential of their animals. Livestock policies are unlikely to reflect the interests of small, rural producers unless such producers organize themselves into groups that can lobby effectively on behalf of their members. Building the capacity of producers to act collectively is therefore essential. Developments in the smallholder dairy sector have shown that producer co-operatives can be successful although excessive political interference often undermines their performance.
Livestock keepers who are dependent on common land are vulnerable both to restrictions on access and to any decline in the quality of resources. Measures that improve the condition of common resources and protect access rights have the potential to safeguard and enhance poor producers’ livelihoods.
Reforms to livestock services, already under way in some parts of South Asia, should be implemented in a way that poor livestock keepers can also benefit. Building capacity to implement reforms, and developing incentives for pro-poor behaviour and attitudes, is therefore an important prerequisite for change.
Southeast Asia*
Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia and
Lao People’s Democratic Republic
* Mekong River Commission (MRC)
www.mrcmekong.org
Although agriculture in the Mekong countries is still strongly dominated by rice production, rural development will require increasing agricultural intensification, which entails shifting from rice to higher value production per hectare and per unit of labour. Livestock production, particularly in the context of an agrarian structure dominated by very small farms, offers the opportunity to achieve this higher production value per unit of land.
However, agricultural policy making and implementation is hindered by political ambivalence towards rural development, resulting in a restrictive land policy that inhibits the potential of rural producers while restricting the growth of off-farm employment opportunities that may benefit the poor. Existing policies tend to favour large-scale production for exports at the expense of small-scale producers and domestic consumers.
There is latent political support to be mobilized for a vision of rural industrialization and modernization through small-scale household production as the means both to reduce rural poverty and to avoid exploitation of resources. In the face of trade liberalization, balanced policies in the trade of livestock products need to be implemented that encourage domestic production, and also consumption of domestic products.
Greater autonomy for local government service units, the reorganization of these units to create a better synergy in service provision, the strengthening of services in remote areas, and the establishment of a legal framework to regulate and protect microfinancing institutions, could all benefit the poor.
Andean Region*
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
and Venezuela
* Comunidad Andina (CAN)
www.comunidadandina.org/index.asp
Livestock remain central to the livelihoods of a large portion of the rural poor in the Andean Region, particularly to those living at higher altitudes unsuitable for sustained crop production. Markets for livestock and livestock products are rapidly growing due to human population growth, increasing urbanization and rising incomes, and the region has seen significant growth in industrial poultry and pig production around its rapidly expanding urban centres. Large segments of the livestock products market, such as dairy, small-ruminant meat, camelid meat and fibre, continue to be supplied by small-scale producers. Continuing growth in demand presents excellent opportunities to reduce poverty among small-scale livestock producers provided they can be linked to these growing markets.
Linking small-scale livestock producers to the expanding markets for livestock products with the aim of reducing poverty, however, will require the strengthening of small producer organizations and institutional reforms and capacity increases at the local and national level.
Given the relatively weak capacity of the state and the neo-liberal economic models adopted in most Andean nations, the range of public policies that could be implemented to foster pro-poor development is limited. As such, donors and other influential organizations within the international community may have to assume the bulk of the responsibility for promoting policies that favour small producers in this region, at least in the near future.
